Dishes
by 17child-of-the-moon17
Summary: She knew that we never really cleaned the dishes, but she loved that we tried. Rated T for Hidan's colourful language. ;


**~Dishes~**

We never really appreciated her until she injured her back.

With Sakura being a medic nin, we always figured that she'd never suffer any serious bodily harm, and that if she did, she'd be able to fix it right away.

Turns out, we figured wrong.

Poor girl blacked out from the pain when she and Kakuzu were acquiring the newest target: a young jinchuuriki who held the seven-tailed demon. The battle, according to Kakuzu, had lasted a substantial amount of time and the fatigue and chakra loss that Sakura had suffered only contributed to the sudden loss of consciousness.

The jinchuuriki got away and Kakuzu carried her home as carefully as possible while traveling at break-neck speeds.

When we saw how black and blue her small frame had become when we were attempting to tend to her wounds, we were shocked, and rightly so. Several ribs were broken, and she had acquired multiple lacerations all over her limbs, the cuts ranging from shallow to dangerously deep. Her spine was absolutely covered with black and purple splotches, stretching from the base of her neck to just above the waistline of her black spandex shorts.

When Hidan got a good look at her injuries, he was downright pissed. "Why the fuck didn't she fucking heal herself?!? She could've fucking died if Kakuzu hadn't brought her in when he had! Dammit!" He proceeded to a dark corner in her bedroom (where she had been brought in) and sulked. He hated it when she was hurt, but he was in shock. None of us had ever seen her so beaten up. This girl was tough stuff, and she knew her way around a battlefield, but to see her so battered was distressing beyond belief.

Kakuzu and Itachi, being the two most calm members out of the lot of us and the most well-informed when it came to the medical field, had patched her up to the best of their abilities. After that, we took turns watching over her, waiting for her to wake up. Tobi had been extremely worried about her chakra levels, which were dangerously low. "Tobi can't feel Sakura-chan's chakra signature. It's like she's not even there…" he had said, trailing off miserably.

It took her a few days, but she woke up when her chakra levels had risen to a more substantial level. Everyone had been in such a state of distress that we hadn't even eaten in those three days that she was out cold. She looked up at the group of us, wincing when she tried to sit up.

"Don't get up; several ribs have been damaged and your spine could be damaged pretty badly as well," Itachi had told her. She laid back down, and stared up at the lot of us.

"What's wrong with you guys? You look like you haven't eaten in days," she said, concern for _our_ well-being swimming through her viridian eyes.

We laughed. That was Sakura for you; always putting us above herself.

So, we ate. And ate. And ate…

Until we noticed the dishes piling up.

Now, none of us like doing dishes, but for Sakura… we put aside our likes and dislikes for her and cleaned up after ourselves for once, because she had always done it for us.

When she heard of this miraculous event a few days later, she smirked and shook her head. "You guys…" was all she said, a knowing smirk touching her pink lips.

A few days later, she healed herself enough to walk to the messy sink and clean our messy dishes, because she knew how much Deidara hated the taste of soap; she knew that Tobi didn't pay enough attention to anything but the soap bubbles; she knew that Hidan didn't wash the dishes, but rather stood there with his hands in the sink, thrilling in the burning sensation brought on by the boiling water; she knew that Kakuzu didn't like the smell of the dish soap, and instead used those thread-like tentacles of his to clean everything; she knew that Itachi hated touching things that had been in other people's mouths; she knew that Kisame didn't like warm water as much as cold (which did nothing to kill germs and get rid of bacteria). She knew that we didn't really clean the dishes, but she loved that we tried.

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**Quick little one-shot, AkatsukixSakura. I was thinking that I'd weave this into my Living a Lie fic, but I wasn't entirely sure. There wasn't really a set theme to this one, just a thought that popped into my head while I was washing dishes earlier this evening.**

**Word count: 726 (I was aiming for around 700…that works)**

**Thanks for reading, feel free to drop a review!**

**Much love,**

**child_of_the_moon**

**XO**


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